The royal court was a tempest of silks, scents, and sharpened smiles.
Stone columns towered over courtiers clad in layered brocade, the noble banners of the founding houses fluttering above them like vultures circling a battlefield. At the center of it all, seated on the raised dais beneath the silver wolf sigil of House Damarion, was Prince Rythe.
He wore no crown. He didn't need one.
His war mantle hung from his broad shoulders, stained with the dust of the training pits. He hadn't changed after the morning drills—deliberately.
Let them smell blood. Let them remember who he was.
The murmurs died when the heavy doors swung open.
Halric Veldar, head of one of the Empire's founding families, swept into the chamber. Robed in the deep maroon of House Veldar, his salt-and-ash hair was pulled tightly back, and his face bore the serene confidence of a man untouched by consequence.
He knelt, as custom demanded, then stood.
"Your Highness," Halric said, voice smooth as silk over steel, "I come with great sorrow. My own blood has betrayed not only his lineage, but the Crown itself."
The court gasped in practiced surprise.
Rythe's fingers curled slightly on the armrest.
"You speak of Aurean Veldar?" Rythe asked, voice neutral.
"I speak of a traitor who no longer bears the name Veldar," Halric said coldly. "As head of my house, I have excommunicated him. He is no longer heir. No longer son. Whatever misguided loyalty he may have claimed, it was not sanctioned. I present, as required, the documents that sever him from our line."
An attendant stepped forward, placing a scroll sealed with Veldar's blood crest into the hands of the court scribe.
The room buzzed.
"And the matter of his treachery?" Rythe asked.
"I offer further evidence," Halric continued smoothly. "Correspondence, intercepted by my own agents, revealing his hatred for the Crown and his plans to attack Your Highness out of envy, resentment, and unbalanced emotion. He acted alone. Recklessly. Without my knowledge or my sanction."
He handed forward a second scroll—this one bearing fragments of letters written in Aurean's own hand.
Forged or not, they would be convincing.
"And you ask the Crown to do what with this 'traitor'?" Rythe asked.
Halric bowed slightly. "Whatever pleases Your Highness. But House Veldar washes its hands of him. He is not ours. He is no one."
The words echoed like a blade drawn across stone.
Rythe was still.
Too still.
"Very well," Rythe said at last. "The court will record the severance of Aurean Veldar's ties to House Veldar. He shall bear no title, no crest, no inheritance."
Halric exhaled, subtle relief flickering in his eyes.
But Rythe wasn't finished.
"However," the Prince added, voice ringing sharper, "he is not 'no one.' He is mine."
The court tensed.
"My collar brands him a slave of the Crown," Rythe continued. "He wears the mark of survival. He has been tried by fire and not perished. Whether he acted alone or not—he remains under my authority."
He leaned forward, gaze fixed on Halric like a wolf scenting weakness.
"And I do not waste tools that can still cut."
Halric's lips tightened.
"My loyalty to the Crown is absolute," he said.
"Then you won't object if I keep your former son where I can see him."
Halric bowed, but his pride had curdled.
Rythe knew the poison of politics ran deep. He knew this declaration would ripple across the court like thunder in a dry valley.
But he also knew this:
Aurean's true punishment wasn't chains.
It was being claimed… not by the father who cast him out…
…but by the Prince he'd been sent to kill.
The kennels were unusually silent.
Aurean sat against the far wall, the rough wool of his slave tunic clinging to his skin, still damp with sweat and the lingering sting of the lash. Even the war hounds seemed to sense the shift in the air. They didn't growl or pace tonight.
They watched him.
From the youngest runt to the massive black-furred alpha, they crouched or lay with heads raised—waiting.
Aurean didn't speak. He didn't need to.
The clink of boots on stone finally shattered the stillness. A low-ranking guard entered, smirking as he tossed a crumpled scrap of parchment at Aurean's feet.
"Congratulations," he sneered. "Your noble father pissed you away like a drunken debt. Court ratified it. You're not Veldar anymore. Just Rythe's cur.
No one laughed.
The hounds growled low, a shared rumble that silenced even the guard, who quickly turned and left.
Aurean unfolded the parchment. The words were formal, perfumed with wax and contempt:
By decree of House Veldar, let it be known that Aurean, former heir, is stripped of blood name and title. He bears no crest. He is of no House. He is of no blood.
His throat was dry.
His father had truly done it.
He hadn't just sent him to die.
He had erased him.
A year ago
The study had always been cold.
Even when the fireplace roared, even when sunlight filtered through the tall stained-glass windows—it remained cold.
Halric Veldar stood behind his desk, elegant as ever in his war coat, fingers steepled before him. His gray eyes never softened.
"You will do this," he said, voice low and final.
Aurean stood at attention, every instinct in his body screaming against the words.
"You want me to assassinate a prince," Aurean said, careful.
"I want you to ensure the future of our bloodline," Halric replied. "Rythe is a threat to Prince Kael's ascension. And we are Kael's men. The Crown has no room for idealists and wolves."
"You're asking me to die."
"I'm commanding you to serve."
A pause.
Aurean swallowed.
"Am I even your son?"
Halric didn't flinch. "You are my blade."
That was the last time they spoke as father and son.
If it could even be called that.
Back in the kennel, Aurean stared into the torchlight, fingers tightening around the scroll.
The hounds pressed closer.
He wasn't sure if it was sympathy or instinct. Perhaps both.
He didn't cry. There were no tears left. Not for a name that had always felt more like a leash.
He was no longer Veldar.
He was no longer anyone's heir.
But if Rythe thought he owned him—if the court thought he was broken—
They had forgotten one thing:
Wolves without names still bite.